


I Heard Your Heart Beating

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, POV Male Character, Post Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:18:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa makes her way to Highgarden, and there she stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Willas is blind rather than lame, but otherwise canon compliant.

Loras came home with terrible scars, Garlan without his left arm and Margaery, sweet Margaery, without her lovely long hair.

There was a terrible war, they say, but Willas saw none of it. He sees nothing at all, after all, not in many long years, and somehow that makes the final full report from his brothers and sister and mother about the fall of the Baratheons and Lannisters and the rise of the Targaryens and Starks all the worse, because he has no way of reassuring himself that they have survived it as themselves.

Garlan and Leonette are happy enough, at least, and little Alyn is a joy, as noisy as Garlan and as pleasant as Leonette, and he is a balm to Mother’s heart.

Margaery seems oddly content now, waiting for her hair to grow out from the rough stubble that is all that remains now, rasping under Willas’ hand when Margaery runs his palm over her scalp to show him how little hair she has left, and not setting about finding a fourth husband. Her last husband and her goodsister alike have been squirreled away in Casterly Rock by their uncle, now Hand of the Queen, and Marg is free to marry as she pleases, provided she can find a man to take a woman thrice-wed. She doesn’t seem to want to wed again, at least not soon, and Willas wonders why that is – aside from power, the thing Marg always wanted most was to be a mother. He knows her well enough to know she’d never _lower_ herself to bear a bastard, so her not wanting to wed confuses him.

Loras worries Willas the most, because Loras has become quiet and rarely leaves his rooms. On the day Willas visits him to beg that he come down to dinner, Loras takes Willas’ hand and presses it to his face, to his poor ruined cheek, the proud cheekbone lost under the twisted mass of scars, the bare, lumpy skin where once there tumbled heavy curls of soft-cool-thick hair the same as Willas’ own, as Garlan’s and Margaery’s, and Willas wonders if his brother will be able to survive much longer without everything that gave him happiness in life.

Loras worries Willas the most until the day the raven comes from King’s Landing, and Maester Lomys reads to him that the Queen has decided it is beyond time that the Lord of Highgarden wed. In fact, Maester Lomys reads, the Queen has taken it upon herself to choose a wife for him, a woman of the highest birth and finest connections imaginable.

A woman by the name of Sansa Stark.

 

* * *

 

It is icy cold on the day that the Northmen, accompanied by the heir to the Iron Throne, arrive at Highgarden. Willas stands with Margaery and Mother, snowflakes brushing over his cheeks as he turns his face up, searching for any shred of warmth from the sun Mother says is trying its damndest to break through the clouds. There’s none to be had, of course, and Mother fusses and sweeps snow from his shoulders and his hair and his beard alike.

He remembers playing in the snow with Garlan when they were children, remembers how everyone used refer to the sunlight reflecting off the sharp whiteness as “blinding,” and he almost laughs. If only he’d known.

He’s long since given up lamenting his lack of sight, if only because he knows it would upset Mother to see him upset over something that she cannot help him with.

The thing he laments most about having lost his sight in that godsforsaken tilt is that it is so difficult for him to travel now – he cannot even ride out alone for fear of Gardener, his horse of so many years, losing his way and not being able to find the path back to Highgarden. He knows that they do it out of love, but he does sometimes wish that his family were not so protective, that they allowed him some measure of independence, that-

“Face forward,” Margaery hisses, her elbow sharp against his ribs. “They’re here.”

Willas likes winter, because the overwhelming scent of roses and violets and gardenia that suffuses the air of Highgarden during the summer fades, and everything smells clean and sharp and deliciously cold, so much so that he can almost taste it on the tip of his tongue, and it is because the air is so clean and sharp and bereft of scent that he smells the Northern party coming, the musky smell of their horses bursting through the gates ahead of their laughter and chatter.

Their accents are strange – broader and flatter than any he’s heard before – and very strong, and he supposes the North has been so isolated for so long that it only makes sense that there would be little or no outside influence on their speech patterns. He notices things like that, things he would not have noticed before, because he must glean as much information as he can from every little invisible detail made available to him.

He cannot use the visible ones, after all.

Mother nudges him gently so he’s facing their guests properly, and he greets them easily enough – he’s been doing this for years, after all, whenever Father was away – and he smiles, although he’s not sure how his greetings are being received.

There is a waft of rosemary and a rustle of skirts, and then a soft voice greeting him, introducing itself as Lady Sansa of House Stark.

As his betrothed.

He holds out a hand to her, hoping against hope that he is at least nearly right with the placement, and then her fingers are wrapped around his and the leather of her gloves is freezing cold against his lips.

“This way, my lady,” he says, waiting until she slips her arm through his before turning and leading her through the doors. “Allow me.”

 

* * *

 

He cannot sense any hesitation from his betrothed when they dine together that night, the two of them and what of their families are left at the high table, their bannermen at the lower tables. She talks easily, if a touch shyly, and she never once passes comment on how he relies on Mother’s help at table, something which he is grateful beyond measure for.

She is sweet, and quiet, and clever, even if she seems nervous of showing it, and he supposes there are worse women he could be married to.

Margaery tells him later that Sansa Stark is an exquisitely beautiful woman, as if that makes a difference to him. He says nothing, knowing that his sister means well, and wonders if this is all some sort of joke, to give him one of the most beautiful women in the realm as his wife when he is the last man capable of appreciating her loveliness.

 

* * *

 

Sansa’s loveliness is not in her face, though, not as far as Willas can discern, but rather in her manner, in the way she does not question how he knows his way around the gardens without being able to see the paths (he has barely left Highgarden in over a decade, he knows precisely how many paces it is from his rooms to anywhere else in the place, knows every path and cloister and avenue and walkway better than he knows his own face, because he does not know how he has changed these past eleven years since last he saw a mirror), in the gentle unfurling of her cleverness that she keeps so carefully hidden most of the time.

He quite likes her, which surprises him – he had not expected to like this woman he is being ordered to wed, but Sansa is… She is nice.

He feels silly for condensing her into such a bland word, but she _is_ nice – she laughs and speaks in a nice, soft voice, and she smells nicely of rosemary, and the warmth of her against his side when they walk together in the gardens is nice, and she is nice to Mother and even to _Grandmother,_ which is a feat in and of itself.

That she is nice to Mother is the true test – Willas does not think he could marry any woman his mother did not like, but Mother has nothing but praise for Sansa, and so he does not object when the wedding is scheduled for a month after Sansa’s arrival.

 

* * *

 

He hates the preparations for the wedding, of course, because the tailor persists in asking him if he likes the cut and colour of his clothes, and it is only Garlan’s opportune humming – a gentle warning – that keeps Willas’ temper in check. He’s long since given up on caring much about his clothes beyond warmth and comfort, and while his _usual_ tailor knows that, Grandmother insisted on some fool from King’s Landing being brought and he _doesn’t_ know that.

Willas dismisses the man within two days and sends for his usual tailor, who knows to let him feel the material – velvet for his doublet, because cold though it is he shan’t be outside, and soft lambswool for his breeches, and the cobbler has new boots with soft leather fresh from the tanners, and there are new linen shirts and smallclothes. No silks, because he doesn’t like the feel of silk, and minimal gold trim because especially when he could see it he always felt Father and Grandmother’s taste for gold trim was ostentatious.

The cloak he will drape around Sansa, he asks only Garlan’s and Mother’s help in choosing – he doesn’t trust Loras and Margaery and Grandmother to choose something he’d like – and when it’s done, he sits with it in his lap and traces the embroidery of golden roses, the thread smooth and thick under his fingertips, in the heavy green velvet until he can almost imagine how they might look.

 

* * *

 

The morning of the wedding, there is a blizzard.

The sept is warm, though, the air rich with the scent of winter peonies underlaid with the heavy spice of incense and, because Garlan insists Willas needs to stop his hands shaking, mulled wine.

He doesn’t drink the wine, of course, but the heat of the cup and the smell of the cloves helps sooth his nerves because it reminds him of sitting on the rug in front of the fire in Father’s solar when he and Garlan were small, while Mother sewed and Father acted out elaborate stories to amuse them before bed. It was cold then, during that last winter that he remembers, and Mother and Father always had a cup of mulled wine before bed, with hot cider for Willas and Garlan. It reminds him of when things were safe and uncomplicated, before his accident and before the war and before Father died.

“Margaery says your bride is especially lovely this morning,” Garlan says brightly, and Willas shakes his head – he knows they mean no harm, Garlan least of all, but he does wish people would stop telling him how beautiful Sansa is, because the more they say it the more he wishes he could see her, and that is pointless and will only cause him pain. He is many things, but he is not masochistic.

The music that plays softly throughout the whole ceremony is beautiful, Willas knows that because he chose it, and their vows are the usual simple fare that Grandmother argued should have been augmented. Sansa takes his hands and guides them to her throat so he can relieve her of her Stark cloak, and Garlan hands him the bridal cloak before relinquishing him once more to Sansa’s guidance, and she gasps in surprise when he trails his hands up her neck to cradle her face, so he can find her to kiss her, and she is not as tall as he thought she was and her lips tastes just slightly of cinnamon.

 

* * *

 

Sansa is as _nice_ as ever during the feast, guiding his hands and talking in the soft voice of hers all the while, laughing at Garlan’s japes and Margaery’s sharp commentary on those sitting at the lower tables.

She touches his hands even when not guiding them, lacing her fingers through his almost shyly. Her skin is soft, her fingers long and slim, and there is a deep scar across the palm of her left hand, almost as if she gripped the blade of a sword. Her hands are oddly cool, though, and he thinks to ask her if she is cold but is distracted by the rumble of conversation shifting and the scraping of benches and tables being pushed back.

“Are the musicians starting?” he asks, and when Garlan says that they are, Willas stands and offers his hand to Sansa. “Would you care to join me, my lady? It is our right to lead the dancing, after all.”

The conversation lulls as he leads Sansa down from the dais to the dancefloor (nineteen paces, turn, sixteen paces, hold) and settles her into his arms. She truly is smaller than he thought, not as tall and slighter, too, because he has not had the opportunity to hold her like this until now and it is interesting to find that Margaery’s perception is so far wrong.

“Are you certain about this, my lord?” she asks. “You must not feel as though you have to do this for my sake.”

“I am certain, my lady,” he promises her, leading her into the dance as if it is nothing – and truly, it is not. “I learned these steps from my mother when I was barely able to walk. If I could still see, I would say I could do them with my eyes closed.”

He remembers Mother leading him and Garlan around the empty great hall, laughing when they trod on her toes, and he remembers how proud they both were when they finally got the steps right. He leads Sansa easily around the floor, knowing that it doesn’t matter how big the floor is because there will be enough room for them to dance this dance properly, and she laughs when he spins her up and around and, for the first time since he relinquished the hot cup of mulled wine that morning, the tension in his shoulders eases.

“Might I ask a boon of you, my lady?” he says quietly as he hears the shuffling of the floor filling around them, pulling her slightly closer. He hears her breath hitch, and he loosens his hold on her just a touch in case he hurt her.

“Ask, my lord.”

“Would you mind… Would you mind forgoing the bedding?” he asks, wondering if he looks as flushed as he feels. He’s been worrying about this since it was announced that he was to be married, worrying about having to stumble up the stairs to his rooms with only Margaery as a safeguard (because he knows his cousins and his younger aunts, he knows his bannermen’s wives and sisters and daughters, and they won’t be gentle with him), and he hopes Sansa won’t mind.

“But we must-“ Sansa’s voice cuts off as the music ends, and then she continues in a whisper. “But we must lie together, my lord?”

“Oh! Oh, I meant – I rather meant that mayhaps we might find our own way to our chambers, my lady.”

“Oh!” Sansa exclaims, and she sounds almost as embarrassed as he feels, and he is sure that he must be bright red because his cheeks are hot. “Oh, of course, my lord, oh, yes, I- I would not mind.”

The tension in his shoulders eases completely, and he cannot help but think that Sansa seems less nervous, too.

 

* * *

 

They escape during a rowdy interlude during which the musicians play something Willas doesn’t recognise and everyone is laughing, too distracted by the merriment of the moment to wonder where their lord and his new lady have gone.

“I am sorry, my lady,” he says as they walk up the stairs. “I know that the bedding ceremony is-“

“It is a relief,” Sansa says quickly. “Please, my lord – it is a relief. I do not lament forgoing it.”

Interesting, and mayhaps not. The bedding ceremony is often less than pleasant for the bride, after all, but there is something else, a sharpness in Sansa’s reaction, in her tone, that makes him think that mayhaps there is something more to her relief than just not wanting to be part of such a… Well, he’s not entirely certain what he should call it.

“How do you like Highgarden?” he asks then, diverting from more sensitive topics in favour of something that cannot, or at least, should not cause any sort of distress. He wishes now, more than he has in a long while, that he could see so he might judge her reactions.

“It is very beautiful,” she says, her hand tightening on his arm for a moment. “And your family has been nothing but kind to me, even though you have ample reason not to be, considering all that my people have helped do to yours.”

Ah, the March of the North in support of the Dragon Queen, demolishing the host supporting the Lannisters, Garlan’s arm, Randyll Tarly and his men among them. It was quite something, by all reports.

“You, personally, though, have done nothing to earn anything but our best grace,” he tells her, pausing when she turns left at the top of the stairs. “I thought mayhaps we might abandon the bridal chamber for tonight – once our absence has been noted, there may be certain of our guests who feel we need encouragement, and they will never think of us being in my chambers.”

“Why not, my lord?”

“Because very few people know where my chambers are,” he assures her, guiding her to the right and twenty-seven paces and then up a flight of smaller stairs. “I think they all assume I sleep somewhere lower down so I don’t have to traverse the stairs, or that I sleep in the master chambers, my father’s old rooms – I never moved from the rooms Garlan and I shared when we were children.”

“A tower room?” she asks incredulously as he leads her up the spiral, and he laughs.

“A tower,” he corrects. “The southern wing of the house is where we all have our rooms, and Mother and Father thought that Garlan and I would enjoy the Peony Tower for ourselves.”

“You have an entire tower to yourself? But…”

“It seems ludicrous now, I know,” he admits, pushing open the door and breathing in with a sigh. “But Garlan and I always held it over Loras and Marg when we were children, that we had an entire tower and they only had suites beside Mother’s. It seemed the finest thing in the world.”

Sansa laughs her soft laugh, that odd rosemary scent of hers cutting through the ever-present hum of peony in the tower so sharply that it startles him. He’s never truly known anything that could overpower the scent of peony in the tower (except when he and Garlan burned the curtains, or when they stole a bottle of Father’s brandy and got so drunk that they spilled it all over the carpet, or when he jumped from high up the spiral staircase to Garlan’s room, missed the mound of pillows, landed on the floor and broke his arm so badly that the bone tore through the skin and their whole solar smelled of copper and iron and blood for a week-) and it’s refreshing, startling but refreshing.

“It’s very lovely,” she says, detaching from his arm and, if the muffled thud of her slippers on the thick rug that covers the polished planks of walnut on the floor is anything to go by, moving towards the fire crackling in the huge hearth. “The Peony Tower?”

“The creepers,” he says, following her and settling into his chair to the left of the fire, under his favourite bookshelf. “There are peonies growing all over this tower – pink in the summer, crimson in the winter. The whole tower smells of them all of the time.”

“It’s lovely,” Sansa says, voice thoughtful, almost wistful. “The rooms that overlooked the godswood in Winterfell always smelled of pine,” she adds. “The sentinels…”

She’s homesick, he realises, if only a little. He sometimes feels the same way when he walks into the study, in a strange sort of way, where the smell of ink and parchment and apple tarts is so strong, where the smell of _Father_ is so strong.

“There is a pine forest about nine or ten miles along the roseroad towards Oldtown,” he offers. “My grandfather was not well enough to travel for the wedding, but he has asked that we visit him at our earliest convenience – we could stop at the forest on the way, if you like. I daresay it will be different from the type of forest you are used to, but…”

“I would like that,” she says, and then the scent of rosemary is stronger which heralds her approach. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Willas,” he says. “If you wouldn’t mind. Please, call me by my name, my lady.”

Her hand is soft and cool on his cheek, his beard even short as it is ruffling under her palm.

“Will you open your eyes?” she asks, her thumb brushing over and back across his cheekbone. It is pleasant, and the scent of the inside of her wrist is something entirely other than rosemary, some other sharp herbal scent that he likes. “Please? I should like to see your eyes.”

He recoils from her then, shakes his head and presses back into his chair.

“I- I cannot,” he says at last. “I cannot. Even if I open them, I- I won’t be able to see you.”

“I know that.”

“I won’t be able to _look_ at you,” he says. “I know how that can be disquieting. Or at least, I have been told how disquieting it can be.”

He hasn’t opened his eyes for anyone save Maester Lomys in years, and only for Maester Lomys to ensure he hasn’t contracted any sort of worrying infection. He can’t imagine opening them for Sansa now.

“Not now,” he offers, the best he can manage because the prospect of her being repulsed by his eyes, as he has had happen before, terrifies him, before lifting his hand to cover hers. “Please, my lady. Not now.”

Her thumb stills, and she sighs the tiniest sigh he has ever heard since the archmaesters told them that he would never see again and Mother had stayed to comfort him when Father ranted and raged and fought with everything that would allow it.

“Very well, my lord,” she says, her thumb stroking once more over his cheekbone before she pulls away. “Not now, then.”

He feels guilty all of a sudden, because this is all that she has asked of him and she could not possibly have wanted to marry a man over ten years her senior, blind and cut off from the rest of the world-

“You are certain nobody will find us here?”

“Certain. Garlan will not tell anyone, and if he tries Mother will castrate him on my behalf.”

She laughs again, warm and soft, and he dares to smile just slightly. He likes her laugh, wishes he had Garlan’s ease with people to make her laugh more.

“Why do you ask?”

“I value my privacy,” she tells him, and there is that edge in her voice again. He wonders at that, wonders if she will trust him enough to tell him why it exists, why she so values her privacy. He hopes that she will – he would like to have a marriage like Mother and Father’s, although it will take considerable work bearing the less than auspicious circumstances of his and Sansa’s betrothal in mind. He hopes his wife (and that _is_ a strange thought, to have a wife now after all this time consigned to bachelordom because of his eyes) will come to trust him as Mother trusted Father.

He heaves himself to his feet, and she is closer than he thought – he almost falls back, but she catches him around the arm and he slips his other arm around her waist to keep his balance.

She is so soft against him, and so slight that he startles again and tightens his grip. She feels almost delicate, nearly fragile in his arms.

She touches her fingers to his lips, feather-light and as soft and gentle about everything else about her.

He kisses her fingertips without thinking, and the faint little gasp that she lets out warms his blood somehow.

“Do you wish to kiss me?” she asks breathlessly, pressing slightly closer.

“If you will allow me to,” he says, just as faintly.

Her body rubs against his when she leans up on her toes, and gods but that long, lithe frame pressing against his is just… Soft and warm and lovely.

Her lips no longer taste of cinnamon, but rather of cherry and apple and sweetwine. When they part under his, when his tongue dips past them, her mouth tastes of all of that and also of caramelized sugar and a hint of ginger and just a faint tingle of some other spice. She kisses back slowly, cautiously, and he comes to the conclusion that she is a very, very good kisser indeed when her tongue curls around his and the hand she touched his mouth with, the hand that she had pressed to his cheek, slides back into his hair and tightens.

“I will allow you to,” she breathes against his mouth when she pulls back, one hand in his hair and the other still tight on his bicep. “I will.”

It’s warm and smells wonderful and she feels utterly delightful, her hips round under his hands and her breasts soft and firm against his chest.

“My room is to the left,” he says, feeling dizzy. “Up the left staircase.”

She detaches herself from him again, the sweet smell of the peonies filling in the space she leaves behind, and when she speaks she is, if he is right in judging the echo, seven or eight steps up the staircase to his bedchamber.

He is always right in judging the echo in the Peony Tower. He knows this tower inside and out better even than he knows Garlan, so Sansa is seven or eight steps up the staircase to his bedchamber.

He crosses the room and slides the latch across on the door before settling the bar into the bracket.

If Sansa values her privacy so, he will do everything in his power to safeguard it.

 

* * *

 

He locks the door of the bedchamber behind him just to be sure, because he knows how persistent Garlan can get while drunk.

“My lady?” he calls uncertainly, because he doesn’t even have that break in the smell of peonies to follow up here because his room is too high for the creepers to climb and the scent of the flowers is faded, a distant memory.

“Here,” she calls back, and she is by the window, the big arched window on the far side of the bed that looks out over the Reach as it is beyond the southern walls of Highgarden. He imagines it’s all silver and white and grey tonight, if the moon is out – the wind stopped howling hours ago, so he assumes the blizzard has passed – and wonders if it makes Sansa think of her home in the North.

“Does the view please you, my lady?”

She touches his face again, fingertips to his lips and then long, slim fingers curling over his cheek.

“You will not hurt me,” she says, sounding surprised by the revelation.

“Never,” he promises her. “Not if I can avoid it, my lady.”

“Sansa,” she corrects him, lifting her other hand to his other cheek. “My name is Sansa.”

He raises his hand slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away, and wraps it around her wrist, following the slender line of her arm to her shoulder, her neck, and up to trace the contours of her face.

“They were right,” he breathes when he raises his other hand, fascinated by the sharp line of her cheekbones, her straight nose, and then the plump fullness of her lips, the round width of her eyes. “You are beautiful, I think.” He runs the backs of his fingers down her jaw, from her temple around to her chin, and sighs. “Your skin is very soft.”

She stands stock still, her hands cool and gentle on his face as he learns her face, as he commits the features of this woman who is to be his wife and companion and lover and the mother of his children to memory.

“You are beautiful,” he says again, and then he kisses her, a single soft caress of his lips on hers. “You are beautiful.”

She lets out a shuddery sort of breath, as if she was holding onto it, and her pulse is throbbing where the inside of his wrist rests against the side of her neck.

“I need to unpin my hair,” she whispers.

“I could comb it out for you,” he offers, wondering if her hair will be warm like her cheeks or cool like her hands, and imagining that it will be very soft indeed. “That is, if you would like me to.”

She takes his hand and pulls him to follow her – his desk, he realises, that’s where she is going, he remembers Mother mentioning leaving a standing mirror on his desk the other day but he has hardly had a moment to himself these past few weeks and hasn’t had time to investigate – and then she sits, leaving him standing awkwardly behind her.

She presses a comb into his hand a moment later – heavy, cold, silver, he thinks, and engraved with a pattern of what he assumes to be roses (near everything in Highgarden is decorated with roses, why not his wife’s comb?) because the detail is too fine for him to puzzle it out – and then begins to speak.

“Did it hurt?” she asks, and because he knows immediately what she means – what else could she mean? – his hands clench and his stomach roils.

“Yes,” he says tightly, dizzy with the memory of his head cracking against hard-packed earth and a moment of quite literally blinding pain before blessed oblivion. “But only for a short while. I was lucky, the archmaesters said. Where I hit my head, and how forcefully… I fractured my skull and lost my sight, but at least I lived,” he finishes bitterly.

“They were right,” Sansa says firmly. “Better to live. To survive. Then you can… Rebuild.”

They sit and stand in silence for a moment, and then she guides his hands to her hair.

It feels _heavenly._

But there’s something odd about how soft and smooth it is, satin-silk-velvet in his hands, and as the comb runs through it again and again and the scent of rosemary grows stronger-

“Do you put rosemary oil on your hair, Sansa?”

“It’s good for it,” she says, a touch more defensively than he expected. “And it- it reminds me of home.”

He says nothing to that, because what can he say? He concentrates on the soft weight of her hair in his hands.

“What colour is your hair?” he asks, feeling foolish but wanting to know.

“Red,” she tells him. “Tully red.”

“I met your grandfather once,” he says. “Or was it your granduncle? I think it was your granduncle. It was at a tourney that Father brought Garlan and I to, I remember that. I was quite small at the time – I’d never met anyone with red hair before. Is yours like his?”

“A little fairer,” she says, reaching back to still his hands. “But close – had you truly never met anyone else with red hair?”

“I was very little,” he reminds her, “and red hair is uncommon in the Reach.”

She stands up carefully, slowly, to give him a chance to move away when she pushes back the chair, he thinks, and then she is close to him again.

“Could you help me with my gown, my lord?” she asks, taking his hands again and guiding them behind her back to the row of tiny buttons holding her gown closed. They’re smooth and round, pearls, mayhaps, because Margaery made some mention of Sansa’s gown being all in silver and white, Stark colours.

It is suddenly terribly warm, he thinks as he pops open one tiny button at a time, following her spine from hips to shoulders and then hesitating, unsure if she will allow him this, too.

“May I?” he asks, pulling at heavy damask experimentally.

“Yes,” she tells him, her hands moving over his chest and starting work on his doublet. “Yes, please do.”

He drags her gown slowly over her shoulders, down her arms (she drops them obligingly before returning to her work on his clothes) and then gives the bodice a good firm push when it catches at her hips, and it whispers to the floor with a gentle little thud.

She shivers, he can feel it when his hands settle on her hips, and then she kisses him again.

She’s less cautious this time, her mouth more insistent against his, and he murmurs in something that is both surprise and appreciation when she nips teasingly at his lower lip.

Her stays are easier than the buttons, simply a matter of unlacing her and he manages all his own laces well enough, after all, and her corset is off before she has his shirt off.

He can feel her ribs through her shift, that fine layer of silk (he might like silk, he thinks, if Sansa is wearing it), each one pronounced under her warm skin.

She draws back slightly, abruptly tense, and her voice is sharp.

“We could not eat as well at Winterfell as you do at Highgarden.”

He feels the slap in her words, and moves one hand up her body, carefully only barely brushing against the swell of her breast, to touch her face.

“I never said a word,” he points out, finding the frown of her mouth and pulling it back to his own, wanting to kiss her more now that he has offended her – he was not judging, he can only imagine how difficult it must be in the North, he was _worrying_ because she is his wife now and he _has_ to worry for her-

He gasps when she begins to unlace his breeches, when she flips back the placket and makes short work of the laces on his smallclothes and _oh,_ that feels _wonderful-_

“To bed?” he offers, his voice higher than he’d like, and she laughs that tinkling little laugh and lets him guide her back towards the bed, her still in shift and stockings and smallclothes and slippers, him still in breeches and smallclothes and boots.

There is a muddled moment, but then he is on his back and Sansa is tugging off his boots and breeches and smallclothes in a rush, and suddenly he’s naked and she’s not, and when she moves back to kiss him again that seems wrong somehow, even though the silk of her shift and stockings and the linen of her smallclothes against his bare skin is more arousing than he would have supposed it to be.

“Come here,” he says, tumbling her back against the pillows (she shrieks in surprise, but really, if he doesn’t know his own bed what hope is there for him) and setting to work on her stockings, tied with silken ribbons and edged with-

“Lace,” he breathes. “Do you wear lace often, Sansa?”

“Not very,” she says, sounding curious.

“A pity,” he admits, hitching her ankle up over his shoulder and slowly rolling her stocking up her leg, around her knee and the firm muscle of her calf, the narrow boniness of her ankle. “I like lace.”

“It was always impractical,” she says, a hitch in her voice as he lowers her leg and lifts the other to give it the same treatment. “Mayhaps less so this far south-“

Her voice catches on something that might very nearly be a moan as his fingers search for the tie in the ribbon at the top of her stocking, high up her thigh, and he hesitates a moment before questing further north, finding smooth skin with one hand and untying her stocking with the other. Her skin is even softer here, right below the hem of her smallclothes, soft and warm under his fingers, and he strokes over it gently as he rolls her stocking off, runs his knuckles along the edge of the linen because somehow this is all very real, more even than it was while they were stripping each other and kissing, somehow more intimate than her mouth moving with his and their hands moving over one another.

He runs his free hand up her leg, ankle to hip, and she lets out a low, shuddering sigh that leaves his mouth dry, for some reason.

Her foot slips from his shoulder, and now he is tugging on the drawstring of her smallclothes, now he is easing them down her legs, now he is leaning forward and bracing one hand on the bed and letting her guide his mouth back to hers as he keeps stroking that absurdly soft skin on the inside of her thighs. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything so soft, except mayhaps the heavy petals of the peony roses that give the tower its name, but only mayhaps. It’s fascinating that her skin could possibly be so soft, that her lips could be so full, that the touch of her cool fingers on his shoulders and back leaves the most unbearable heat in its wake.

Gods, he could kiss her forever and never tire of it, he thinks, but then his fingers drift higher up her leg, to where her skin is damp and hot and hidden under curls of hair coarser than that which he spent what felt like a small eternity combing not very long ago, and she pulls away to bite down on a gasp.

He leans closer and kisses her skin (near her nape, he discovers after a brief exploration), kisses along her hairline to her ear and around, to the hollow under her ear, behind her jaw, where he can feel her heartbeat just faintly under his tongue, up to her temple where her skin is salt-sweet.

“Willas,” she gasps, and she turns her face, searching, he thinks, for his mouth again, so he gives it to her as he slides his fingers over that soft-hot-wet skin and then slides one finger in, eliciting a squeak of shock from her and a moan from himself because she is _so_ tight.

He kisses down around her chin, down the column of her throat, stopping to nuzzle into her neck because the scent of her skin, a combination of the rosemary oil from her hair and the other scent of the inside of her wrists – a perfume, he knows, but one he cannot place – and that salt-sweet tang of sweat, is far more pleasant than it should be.

She shivers when his teeth catch on the jut of her collarbone, or mayhaps it’s because he eases a second finger into her at the same moment. He’s not sure until he curls those two fingers inside her and she moans, hips shifting, and it’s the most perfect sound he has ever, ever heard.

“That’s it,” he sighs against her breastbone, kissing his way down to the lacing of her shift (his hands are occupied, it only makes sense that he open the lacing with his teeth), “let me know if something feels good, sweetling, tell me if it feels good.”

She moans again as he nudges apart her shift, the tip of his nose brushing over the firm peak of her nipple. The skin of her breasts is a different sort of soft again, soft and almost ripe under his mouth, and the desperate little sound she makes when he gently catches her nipple between his teeth is nearly enough to unman him it’s so sweet. He spends an age rubbing his cheeks into that ripe skin, learning the feel and the smell of her, the clear scent of the upper slope and the muskier scent of the underside, the change from satin above to velvet below, the sounds she makes when he kisses down her breastbone, when he sucks softly on her nipples.

It doesn’t take much to coax her into slipping off her shift, especially not with his fingers still stroking slowly between her legs, and then he has more of her to discover, those prominent ribs that he silently vows will be filled out, the dip of her waist, the slender swell of her hips, the thin skin stretched over her hipbones and the achingly soft skin just below them, the crease of her thigh and that delightful soft warmth that leads to heat, glorious heat and the bitter-sweet tang of her, and then-

“Willas, Willas what are you doing?” she asks, fingers twisting into his hair and tugging his head up just as he was about to dip in, to taste, and he groans in disappointment.

“I’m learning you,” he says. “I cannot see you, so I must learn you somehow else, my lady.”

And then he leans back down and noses through the soft-rough curls of her mound, lower, to where they’re wet and clinging to her skin, and then she cries out high and sharp and oh, her nails raking across his scalp and her thighs shifting over his shoulders, her taste so full and rich on his tongue, and her cunt, her tight, hot cunt, flexing tighter and hotter around his fingers as he strokes in and out, faster now that he has his mouth on her, and she peaks suddenly, startling them both, calling his name and pulling hard on his hair.

“You are a very quick learner,” she says breathlessly as she guides him back up along her body, guides his mouth back to hers (she doesn’t seem to mind the taste of her own pleasure on his lips, on his tongue, so he kisses her until he can’t breathe and then kisses her a little bit more).

“I feel as if I could spend my whole life learning you,” he tells her honestly, leaning down to nuzzle against her neck again, and this time her fingers are gentle in his hair, tender, and he presses a kiss to where her pulse is hammering the hardest.

“Are you ready?” he asks gently, rocking his hips into hers just slightly, and he feels her nod as a brush of her jaw against his temple so he reaches down between them, takes himself in hand and searches for where she’s hottest.

She stiffens when he sinks into her, even slow and careful as he is being, and he winces to have caused her pain, especially when she feels so perfect around him, so very perfect, as if she were made for him or he were made for her, it doesn’t really matter-

“Please,” she whispers, one hand fisted in his hair and the other digging into his back, “please, Willas.”

So he begins to move.

She pulls him up for another kiss, harder this time, harder and fiercer, but she pulls away with a moan when he slips a hand between them to touch her, to tease her to another release, to tumble her over the edge with him, and he searches out that throbbing pulse in her neck again because- because-

She's warm, so damnably warm, and even if her back wasn't arching underneath him the rapid thrum of her pulse against his cheek when he presses his face into her neck would be enough to reassure him that he isn't hurting her, that and the soft whisper of her voice against his ear, saying his name over and over-

The tension gathers at the base of his spine and low in his stomach all at once, taking him by surprise when it loosens, when his hips jerk forward and he moans into her hair. She gasps, tightening around him and snapping up to meet him, and then they slump together into a tangle of sweaty limbs and it feels…

Soft.

He rolls off her reluctantly, but she follows him, curling against his side and resting her head on his shoulder. He slips an arm around her, runs his hand up and down her back-

“What’s this?” he asks, tracing what can only be a scar on her left shoulder blade, horrified to discover that it is not the only one on her back, patches of silver-smooth skin dotted and slashed across the satin.

“It is nothing,” she says, recoiling, but he catches her hand before she can entirely pull away.

“I would know who did this to you, my lady,” he says firmly. “I would have their names.”

“What difference would it make?”

“If I have their names, I can see that they are hanged for daring lay hands on you. Their names, my lady.”

“They are already dead,” she says after a long pause. “All of them are dead. Having their names will make no difference.” She settles back against his side, surprising him. “But thank you,” she whispers. “For wanting them dead. Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

Married life is simpler than Willas expected.

Sansa takes Garlan’s old rooms in the Peony Tower as her own, because it is expected that they have separate chambers, but they usually sleep in Willas’ rooms. She quickly becomes close to Mother, which pleases him more than he could ever find words to express, and Margaery and Garlan have nothing but praise for her.

Loras comes to see Willas in the study one evening, after Maester Lomys has left him but before he has drummed up the force of will to leave this place that has so much of Father in it still, and asks if Sansa makes Willas happy.

He is not sure quite yet, thinks it is far too soon to say, but he knows what Loras needs to hear so he says yes, because he thinks he and Sansa may yet make one another happy and that is what Loras means.

He and Sansa personally get along easily enough, in part because she seems as determined as he is to find some measure of happiness in their marriage. She is easy to talk with, likes music near as much as he does (she even asks that he teach her to play the dulcimer), enjoys the gardens and doesn’t seem to mind when he near always gets pulled away to the stables for some reason or other when they go on their walks.

She has terrible nightmares, though, truly awful nightmares that visit her twice, mayhaps three times a week, that wrench her screaming from her sleep and the only thing that soothes her is holding her close and singing, even though he has never been much of a singer.

It is simpler, and it is more complicated, but Willas finds himself liking being married, which takes him by surprise.

 

* * *

 

Their planned trip to Oldtown is cancelled when a raven arrives to tell them that half of House Hightower is already on its way up the roseroad to visit at Highgarden. Willas is disappointed but unsurprised to be told that the Old Man and Malora are not coming, but all four of his uncles are on their way and really, he and Sansa can visit Oldtown next year – he is looking forward to having his uncles here, though. Baelor in particular, because Baelor was the only person aside from Mother and Garlan who treated him precisely as before after his accident, and because he has not seen Baelor since Father died and would very much like a chance to talk to someone who he does not have to be strong for.

Even if Uncle Baelor didn’t particularly like Father. Mayhaps he should speak with Uncle Humfrey instead.

Still, Mother seems happy to have her brothers coming to visit, and even Loras perks up at the prospect of having their uncles for company. Sansa is cautiously curious, listening to all their tales of the hijinks Humfrey in particular has gotten up to over the years with an interest that seems unfeigned, as far as Willas can discern, and so it is that she stands with him to greet them, her hand tucked into his elbow and standing on her toes as if to see better through the flurries of snow.

“Malora is with them!” Garlan exclaims, clapping Willas on the shoulder with a laugh. “Why, she hasn’t left the Tower in longer than the Old Man!”

The others all sound delighted by Malora’s presence (she may be the Mad Maid outside the family, but she is not that character with them), but Willas can guess why Malora has come. There is only one thing that would drive her to come here, to leave the Old Man’s side.

He’s very ill. He must be, must be at death's door. Malora has come to deliver the news.

The others, Mother with them, crunch down the steps through the snow to greet the newcomers, but Willas waits, knowing-

Slender arms wrap around his shoulders, and he hardly notices Sansa detach herself from his arm because he has to hold Malora.

“Hello, special boy,” she sighs, squeezing him tight.

“Hello, auntie,” he says, lifting her off the ground and whispering “How bad is he?”

“Very,” she whispers back before he sets her down, and then her icy-cold hands are on his face. “You should shave off this beard, you have such a lovely jawline – Alerie, come here! Is it not a pity that your son hides his lovely jawline under his horrible beard, sister?”

“Now auntie,” he chides teasingly, smiling despite the horror of how ill Grandfather must be if even Malora says he is very bad, “I’m a grown man with a wife to order me about. It’s not your place anymore, nor Mother’s.” He holds out a hand, and Sansa wraps her fingers around his, steps back to his side. “May I introduce my wife, Lady Sansa? Sansa, I would like to introduce my aunt, Lady Malora-“

“Mad Malora, they call me,” Malora says breezily, sweeping Willas aside and, by the sounds of it, embracing Sansa. “This rabble has been known to call me auntie, though, so I advise you do the same.”

_“Auntie,”_ Willas sighs, exasperated, but Malora only laughs and urges Mother to bring her inside out of the snow and cold. Then the uncles are there, Baelor first nearly setting light to Willas’ hair with his pipe, then Gunthor and Garth (who have always been closer to Garlan) and then blessed Humfrey, already laughing at some joke or other that Willas is not privy to – no, all he receives is a kiss on the brow and the promise that Sansa will be well looked after should she grow bored of him.

He and Sansa are left alone for a moment on the steps in the snow when Garlan and Loras and Margaery usher their uncles and their wives inside, and Sansa laughs under her breath.

“They are something,” she says bracingly, patting his arm and looping her elbow through his.

“That they are,” he agrees with a smile. “That they are.”

 

* * *

 

They are both more than a touch drunk when the time comes to stumble up the stairs to his room that night, giggling and off-balance and leaning on one another more heavily than usually necessary.

“Do you know,” Sansa says as they stumble against the wall for the eighth or ninth time, her body warm and soft between him and the stone, “I rather forgot to wear smallclothes to dinner tonight.”

And if he wasn’t hard already from the way they’ve been kissing and fumbling at one another’s clothes, the idea of her bare under the lace underskirt she has taken to wearing these past few weeks would have him mad for her – it does have him mad for her, unbearably so, and he can’t even find words to express just how marvellously arousing the idea of-

“Bed,” she gasps against his mouth, “upstairs, someone might walk in-“

So he pulls her with him when he begins moving up the stairs again, but because he’s drunk and his senses are completely addled by her and he’s lost count, he trips and pulls her down with him when he falls, pulls her into his lap in a confusion of skirts and giggles, and then there is a moment of quiet.

“I love you,” he says, surprising them both and meaning it entirely.

“And I you,” she promises him, holding her face in her hands again, thumbs rubbing over his cheekbones. “Willas, will you- will you open your eyes for me? Please?”

Well, he’s told her he loves her, and there’s a lovely sort of lazy heat between them now so why not?

He is still shy of opening his eyes, though, so he does it slowly, unsure how she is going to react.

“Oh,” she breathes, tracing the tip of a finger around his left eye. “Oh, but Willas, why are you so shy of opening your eyes? They’re beautiful!”

He blinks, the motion feeling odd without the accompanying blip of sight he remembers (that’s why he keeps his eyes closed, at least in part, because then it feels normal to not be able to see).

“Truly?”

“Completely,” she assures him, tracing around his eyes over and over again with just the very tips of her fingers. “So very beautiful.”

And there’s really nothing he can do besides kiss her then, long and deep and slow, and if they make love on the staircase leading to his bedchamber that night, well, neither of them is ever going to tell anyone that.

 

* * *

 

Willas hates riding out with anyone but his brothers and uncles, because everyone else is either afraid of offending him and doesn’t correct him when he and Gardener ride away from the trail, or else they are annoyed with the whole notion of a blind Lord of Highgarden and so go out of their way to be unhelpful and awkward and rude.

His brothers, of course, know that Mother would kill them with her knitting needles if ever they treated him that way, and his uncles know that word would reach either Malora or the Old Man, or else Baelor himself would hamstring the others for daring to be anything less than utterly accepting of Willas’ limitations.

“Right then,” Baelor announces, tugging on Gardener’s reins to pull Willas back in line, “tell us about this wife of yours.”

“You’ve seen her for yourself,” he points out, wondering if he’s blushing – he hopes not. Baelor always teased him horribly for how red he blushed while he was squiring. “She’s very lovely.”

“You’ve been married near half a year,” Humfrey says, thumping Willas playfully in the shoulder. “Come on, lad – surely you’ve formed more of an opinion than _lovely_ on the girl!”

“Yes,” Willas agrees. “I have.”

“And?”

“I’m very fond of her,” he says, grinning when uncles and brothers alike roar their teasing disapproval to the heavens.

“You are fond of her, though,” Baelor says quietly when the rest have galloped on ahead. “Your little wife. Pretty little thing she is – sweet-tempered enough to deal with your harridan grandmother _and_ with Loras, but not vacant enough to bore you. Quite the catch.”

“Most would say she’s a catch because her brother is Lord of Winterfell and her cousin is the Queen’s acknowledged bastard nephew,” Willas considers, clicking his tongue when Gardener shies away from a fall of snow from the trees above them. “But yes, I suppose I am lucky to have her for other reasons.”

“Hah!” Baelor exclaims. “Other reasons being the fact that you two can hardly keep your hands off one another?”

“Baelor!”

“We’ve been here almost two weeks, lad,” Baelor laughs. “Mal and Humfrey walked in on the two of you in the library the other day, and don’t get me started on your walks in the gardens. Poor gardeners know well to avoid the-“

“Baelor, please!” Willas pleads, absolutely certain that he’s blushing now. “We- I don’t- I mean, Sansa and I- Stop this!”

Baelor laughs again, ruffles Willas’ hair affectionately and then laughs some more.

“Still the same blushing maiden who came to squire with me seventeen years ago, I see,” he teases. “Married or not, lad, you’ll _always_ be a blushing maiden.”

 

* * *

 

“Grandfather’s dying, isn’t he?”

Margaery’s question takes Willas completely by surprise, to the point where his fingers slip on the keys of the dulcimer as they haven’t in years.

“What makes you say that?” he asks, shifting over on the stool and patting the space beside him. “He was well enough when last we visited-“

“That was years ago, and besides – Malora would never have left the High Tower unless she had something important to tell you and Mother.”

“Marg-“

“Is he dying, Willas?” she asks quietly, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Is Grandfather dying?”

“Malora thinks so,” he admits. “Baelor doesn’t want to admit it, but… Malora says it’s a wasting sickness, says the Old Man is fading away before their eyes.”

“Oh.”

“He sent them here before Sansa and I could visit,” Willas goes on, temper flaring to counteract the tears burning behind his eyes, and he slams shut the lid of the keyboard. “He didn’t want me to- didn’t want me to-“

Willas has always been closer to their grandfather than the others, and while the others might be able to accept that the Old Man hadn’t wanted them to visit him when he is so weak, Willas hates that he cannot be there for him – the Old Man was there for him, after all, when he was at his lowest ebb, when he was learning to cope without his eyes. He is furious with his grandfather for refusing to allow him to repay the favour, because it is easier to be angry than it is to accept that Leyton Hightower is _dying._

Margaery slides an arm around him, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders, and they sit at the dulcimer until the bell rings for dinner.

 

* * *

 

Sansa has been more sensitive under his hands of late, her breasts in particular, and it is not until he wakes up early enough to hear her throwing up downstairs in her own room that the pieces fall into place.

“Sansa?” he asks, standing stark naked in the door of her room but too confounded to care. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

She shuffles back across the room towards him, the clap of her open-backed slippers muffled by the carpet, and leans heavily against his chest.

“I wanted to be certain,” she whispers, fingers digging into his shoulder blades. “And then, Maester Lomys said that the first three moons are dangerous, that babes are often lost that early-“

He bundles her up in his arms, buries his face in her hair, and wonders how it is that he has become so lucky.

 

* * *

 

Now that he knows Sansa’s secret, he begins to notice other things – the way she hisses in discomfort when her maid tightens her stays too far, the way certain foods have disappeared from their table, the way she has stopped using rosemary oil in her hair.

Baelor, observant bastard that he is, has noticed too, and Malora and Mother have as well, although mercifully Grandmother seems to remain oblivious.

“You should name the child Baelor,” Baelor says one day when the two of them are walking through the stables. “Good name, Baelor. Targaryen name, too, so the Queen’ll like it.”

“I’m not naming my son Baelor,” Willas laughs, running his fingers over the nameplate on the stall door to be certain he’s at the right one. “Nor am I naming a daughter Malora, before she suggests it – Sansa wants to name the babe for her mother if it’s a girl.”

“Catelyn Tyrell,” Baelor muses, stepping past Willas when he pushes open the door. “It has a ring – I say, lad, where’d you pull this one from?!”

“The stud was a sandsteed,” he says, pushing the door closed and stepping into the stall with Baelor and Comet. “A gift from Oberyn – he’s down the far end. We can’t keep him with the rest of the horses, he’s too high-spirited.”

“Catelyn’ll work this far south,” Baelor says, voice muffled – Willas assumes he’s checking Comet’s legs, “but don’t let her give a boy a Northern name. Stark names won’t fit Tyrells any more than Tyrell names’d fit a Stark.”

“We’ve agreed not to name a son after anyone who died in the war,” Willas says, leaning back against the wall and folding his arms. “Neither of our fathers, not her brothers. No Targaryen names either, mind.”

“What names, then?”

“Sansa wants to name the babe for whichever side of the family he takes after,” Willas admits, unable to hold back a smile. “Edwyn if he looks a Stark, Leo if he looks a Tyrell.”

“And if he looks a Tully, like your little wife? Or a Hightower, like you apart from the hair?”

“Leyton if he takes after me,” Willas says quietly. “And Marq if he takes after Sansa.”

“Ah, a good Riverlands name,” Baelor pipes up, crunching across the straw to stand beside him. “Hope he takes after you though – Marq’s a horrible name.”

“Baelor-“

“Although Edwyn’s not wonderful, either,” Baelor adds thoughtfully. “Leo or Leyton, I think – try and convince her to go with a name from the Reach.”

“Oh, of course, _Baelor_ and _Alysanne_ are such Reach names,” Willas mocks, wincing when Baelor punches him in the ribs in play. “Oi, I can’t dodge, you know!”

“Respect your elders,” Baelor says sternly, but then he leans against the wall beside Willas and sighs. “Mal told you how bad the Old Man really is, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did. You should have told me the truth, Baelor. Malora’s not exactly… gentle.”

“She refuses to accept that there’s hope yet,” Baelor grouses, spitting in the straw. “Mayhaps-“

“Grandfather would never have sent Malora to speak with Mother if he wasn’t bad, Baelor.”

Baelor’s sigh sounds a thousand years old.

“No, lad. I suppose he wouldn’t.”

 

* * *

 

The Hightowers leave after having been at Highgarden for six weeks, but before they go Sansa tentatively announces her pregnancy.

To Willas’ amazement, all of his uncles save Baelor and both of his brothers are surprised.

“Garlan, you and Leonette have had a child! You of all people should be able to tell-“

“Oh, hush and accept your congratulations like the proud fool you are,” Garlan huffs, throwing his arm around Willas and butting their temples together as they have since they were children. “Well done, both of you.”

Loras is less exuberant, but he speaks quietly with Sansa and that lets Willas concentrate on the overwhelming sensation of four uncles and an aunt trying to hug him all at once, the uncles crushing him between them as Malora slips around them to press a kiss to each of his eyelids.

Everyone talks about who the child will look like, and Willas has never lamented not being able to see more than he does in this moment.

Sansa laughs when they climb into bed that night, laughs at the way he curls around her with both of his hands on her still-flat belly.

“I shan’t be able to see our child,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to her head (her ear, as it happens). “I want to know him – or her – in every other way I can.”

 

* * *

 

It gets to the point where Willas is better informed of the changes in Sansa’s body than she is, so determined is he to know absolutely _everything_ about the babe. He teaches her to play the dulcimer with her sitting between his legs so he can keep his hands on her rapidly swelling belly until she needs correction, and it is at the dulcimer that he feels their child move for the first time.

“Was that-“

“Yes,” Sansa laughs, her hands clasping over his. “I’ve felt him before, but never this strong – he must like this music.”

 

* * *

 

And everything seems to be going so well – Malora writes that Grandfather seems stronger, that there is more flesh on his bones. The maesters think that mayhaps winter is passing. Garlan and Leonette’s son grows bigger and louder and brighter by the day. Margaery and Loras both seem more themselves, and Mother (Sansa tells him this) casts off her mourning clothes on the anniversary of Father’s death.

And Sansa’s stomach swells steadily, the babe within kicking and tumbling so she can hardly sleep and, because he lies half curled around her belly at night, neither can he.

Grandfather writes himself to invite them all to Oldtown when Sansa is over eight months gone, and Willas is reluctant to admit that it is impossible that they join the rest of the family for the journey.

“Sansa cannot travel, not in her condition, and you cannot leave her here alone,” Mother says firmly. “The babe is due within the next few weeks, sweetling, you _must_ stay with her – birthing your first child is a terrifying ordeal, special boy.”

Mother’s hands are the same shape as his own, long bony fingers and a broad palm, and he leans into her touch when she presses her hand to his cheek.

“I remember when I was due to birth you,” she says, “the maesters told me that you would be a big babe, and they were right – you were enormous when you were born, bigger even than Garlan.”

“I did not know that.”

“No, I don’t imagine you did,” she agrees, sounding just slightly amused. “But remember, sweetling – Sansa is bigger than I was with you, but she is much slighter than I ever was.”

“You think the birth will be difficult?”

“I think she will want her husband with her,” Mother says gently, pulling his face down so she can kiss his brow. “Now go, fuss over your wife and celebrate your grandfather’s return to health here – he would want you to look after Sansa, Willas.”

“He would want us all in the High Tower to make an enormous fuss over him because he has recovered.”

“Stop being petulant. Your brothers and Margaery will come with me, and you can visit Father once your child is strong enough.”

“My well-wishes, then,” he sighs, knowing that Mother is unswayable when she talks in that firm tone – it’s something they all learned while still crawling on the hearthrug in Mother and Father’s solar.

“Good boy,” Mother says approvingly, patting his cheek. “And mayhaps yourself and Sansa should move into the lord’s and lady’s chambers while I am gone – your heir may want to play knights in a tower of his own, you know.”

 

* * *

 

Highgarden is lonely with the whole family save himself, Sansa and Grandmother gone to the High Tower or, in Uncle Garth’s case, to the Arbor to visit Aunt Mina, but Willas finds his time completely occupied between his duties and easing Sansa’s near-constant aches and pains – she can hardly walk for how sore her ankles and feet are, so every evening he sits on their bed with her feet in his lap and rubs them with the lavender oil she likes until the pain eases, and then he sits behind her and settles her against his chest, bearing her weight to rest her back.

Grandmother is absolutely no help at all, telling horrific tales of women she knew who had difficult births, and Sansa tenses so horribly every time Grandmother walks into a room that Willas has a blazing row with her about appropriate conversational material.

There isn’t room for both of them to sit on the stool to continue Sansa’s lessons on the dulcimer, so she lays on the sofa under the window and he plays for her in the evenings because the music soothes both her and the babe.

Her pains start on the day he receives word that Mother and the rest have arrived safely in Oldtown, early in the morning and so far apart that Maester Lomys doesn’t even think it necessary to call for the midwives just yet.

Willas abandons his duties for the day, spends it holding Sansa in his room in the Peony Tower (they’ve agreed to move to the lord’s and lady’s chambers, but also agreed not to move until after the babe is born) and rubbing her back when the pains seize her, letting her lie heavy against his chest when she is free of them, his face tucked into the crook of her shoulder, his cheek to her pulse.

It is late in the evening by the time Maester Lomys arrives with the midwives, at which point Sansa’s pains are much closer together and she is already tired, so tired, but he holds her tight and whispers encouragement as she cries out in pain.

“What’s wrong?” she asks hours later, after her waters have broken and the pains, the contractions, have started coming even closer together, tight bursts of concentrated agony that leave her clawing at his thighs and biting down on his forearm and sobbing in pain, slumped against him to save her strength for the pushing the midwives tell them is still to come. “What’s wrong, maester?”

“Nothing, my lady,” Maester Lomys says. “You’re just slower than we expected.”

Willas knows that tone of voice, has heard it a thousand times before.

Maester Lomys is lying. There _is_ something wrong, with Sansa or with the babe.

“What’s going on?” he asks tightly, pressing a kiss to Sansa’s temple when another contraction subsides. “Maester-“

“Lady Sansa is not quite so dilated as she should be, given how close together her pains are,” the old man says in that same calming voice. “Not to worry, my lord, we can still manage.”

Which means Sansa’s life is in danger, their child’s life is in danger, this is a complication they did not foresee – they were so worried about the size of the babe in comparison to the width of Sansa’s hips that they never thought to worry about anything else.

He presses his cheek back to her pulse, thrumming like a bird’s against his skin.

“All will be well, my love,” he promises her, knowing that it’s not true but not knowing what else he is supposed to say. “All will be well.”

“It hurts,” she moans, back arching and twisting as another contraction seizes her. “Oh, Willas, it _hurts-“_

“I know, love, I know,” he says desperately, turning his face to kiss her cheek, offering her what comfort he can. “I know, but you must be strong-“

This contraction is different, even Willas can tell that, and the ominous silence from the midwives and Maester Lomys makes his gut churn.

“What now?” he demands.

“It is a touch soon for Lady Sansa to be pushing, my lord,” the maester says, still in that infuriating lying voice. “We will manage.”

Sansa screams, the most horrible sound Willas has ever heard, when the next contraction grips her, sobbing terrible, broken sobs when she falls back against him again, her whole body trembling with the effort.

“You’re doing so well,” he whispers against her sweaty hair, “so well, love, so brilliantly, just a little more.”

But it is a great deal more, not a little, and the sheets underneath them are soaking (with blood, Willas knows, but he refuses to acknowledge that, for once thankful that he cannot see proof of something, proof that his wife and mayhaps his child are dying in his arms) when Maester Lomys and the midwives begin talking among themselves again.

“Hold tight to Lady Sansa, my lord,” Maester Lomys says, and then Sansa’s legs are being pulled out across Willas’, held in place, he assumes, by the midwives, and Sansa is screaming again, louder this time, thrashing against his hold and her pulse is slamming against his cheek, terror and pain making her heart beat so fast he fears it might burst.

“There,” Maester Lomys says after too long of Sansa screaming and fighting, and the midwives let go of her legs – Willas knows only because she hooks her feet around his ankles – and then she is screaming again, and he does not understand how she has the strength to go on.

“Make it stop,” she begs, “please, Willas, please, make it stop, I cannot- I cannot-“

“Maester Lomys-“

“If I work quickly, I can definitely save the babe,” Maester Lomys says, the lie gone from his voice, which is brisk and sharp now. “But-“

“Do not ask me that,” Willas breaks in, horrified. “Do not _dare_ ask me to choose between my wife and my child, maester.”

“Save the babe,” Sansa gasps, body compressing around another contraction (she has been labouring for so long, so very long, how does she still have any strength left, he thanks any god who is listening that she does). “Save my babe, maester, save the babe-“

She cannot be doing this, cannot be risking her own life for the babe, but of course she is, of course she would want to save their child even if it meant dying herself.

“Please live,” he begs her, nosing through her hair, “please, Sansa, please live, for me, for the babe, you must live-“

One shaking hand twists into his hair, pulls him up so his face is level with hers, nose to nose.

“Open your eyes,” she orders, and he does, he opens them wide for this brave woman who he never expected to love when she was sent to him. “I hope he has your eyes.”

Then she turns her face away from his and screams again, hoarse with the effort of so many hours, screams and screams and screams and he is crying into her neck, his cheek against her racing pulse, because as long as her heart beats he still has her, she’s still with him, she-

Her screams trail off, replaced with a strange high-pitched wail, and…

“A boy,” Maester Lomys says, no small amount of satisfaction in his voice. “An heir, my lord.”

“I hope he has your eyes,” Sansa breathes, her fingers still in his hair and her heart still beat-beat-beating against his cheek, he can feel it, she’s still alive, she might live, she can pull through this. “Tell him… Tell him I loved him, Willas?”

“You will tell him yourself,” Willas insists, voice thick with tears, “you will, Sansa, and we have to name him, don’t you remember? Please, love, please-“

“Tell him…”

Her pulse is slowing against his cheek, and he can hear Maester Lomys hard at work, but that all seems far away because Sansa, his Sansa, is fading away even as he begs her to stay.

“Open your eyes again,” she whispers. “For me.”

Her fingers touch the skin under his eyes, left then right, and then her lips fit against his for a kiss as final as a death knell.

“I love you,” she whispers, fainter than before, and his hand is splayed over her throat, he can feel the slow thud-thud of her pulse as it drifts ever slower, like a dirge under his fingertips.

“And I you,” he tells her, “and I you, please don’t die, Sansa, please stay with me, _please_ love.”

But her hand falls from his face, and her pulse stops beating under his hand, and Maester Lomys says something about having done everything he could.

Willas is only aware that Sansa is gone, and so he gathers her as close as he can and he sobs into her hair (she only started using the rosemary oil again a week past, it turned her stomach until then), rocks her back and forth and begs her to come back to him, begs her until his voice fades to nothing and Grandmother comes, her wrinkled hand soft on his hair, and his cheek, and she coaxes him to let Maester Lomys have Sansa, because she has to be- she must be prepared for-

“Come now, boy,” she says, her usual words but not at all her usual voice, “you haven’t even held your son yet.”

 

* * *

 

He dictates letters to be sent to Winterfell and King’s Landing and Riverrun and Dragonstone and Oldtown. He arranges for Sansa’s funeral, he makes arrangements for her brother’s accommodation even though it will be at least two moons before he arrives, he does does does to keep himself busy.

He does not go to see his and Sansa’s son.

He hates himself for it, but he cannot bring himself to go to the babe who was born at the cost of Sansa’s life. It is foolish, and he knows Sansa would despise him for it, but he cannot do it, cannot go to the nursery beside his new chambers, the lord’s chambers.

He sits in the sept with Sansa every day, kneels beside her bier and prays that he can stop being such a craven, that he can be a father to their son, but it does not help.

It takes nine days for Mother and the rest to come from Oldtown, and Willas is in the sept when they arrive.

The Old Man is with them.

“Come here, lad,” he says, hefting Willas to his feet and engulfing him in the sort of hug he hasn’t had since he was a child. Willas finds himself clinging desperately to his grandfather, clutching fistfuls of the Old Man’s doublet in an effort not to break down before the entire family, and then Mother is taking him from Grandfather and guiding him into the keep.

“No,” he says, confused, “no, I have to- someone has to stay with Sansa, I have to stay with Sansa-“

“Your uncles and your brothers will stay with her,” Mother says in that inarguable tone. “You need to bathe, and you need to sleep, and you need to introduce me to my grandson.”

He lets Mother drag him inside, lets her push him gently up the stairs to the nursery.

It smells of milk and linen and rosemary, and Willas feels sick.

“What does he look like?” he blurts out, clinging to the doorframe and not daring to come into the room properly. “My- my son. What does he look like, Mother?”

“You, I think,” she says, the first hint of laughter he’s heard since Sansa- since his son was born in her voice. “He has Sansa’s hair, but he looks just like you did as a babe other than that.”

 

Willas nods, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

“His name is Leyton,” he manages to say. “For- for Grandfather.”

“I worked that out myself, special boy,” Mother says, and her voice is hushed and soft. “Is it alright that I hold him?”

“I- yes, of- of course.”

He prays that she does not try to pass the boy – Leyton, with Sansa’s hair – to him, because he does not know how to explain why he has no clue how to hold an infant after over a week as a father.

The sob pushes past the lump in his throat despite his best efforts, and he cries standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with Mother’s hand on his head.

“She’s gone,” he gulps, “Sansa is gone, Mother, she’s gone, she died, she’s _dead-“_

“Ssh, now, sweetling,” Mother soothes him, stroking his hair. “Ssh, I know- Oh, look! You’ve woken the babe!”

Willas sniffs, tries to control himself, but-

“He has your eyes, too. He’s the very image of you aside from his hair.”

* * *

_ And in the dark,  I can hear your heartbeat  _

_ I tried to find the sound _

_ But then it stopped and I was in the darkness   
_

> Cosmic Love, Florence + the Machine


	2. Epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally an epilogue. Enjoy still seems slightly inappropriate.

"Papa?"

Willas turns his head to the door of the study at the sound of Leyton's voice, sets aside his pipe and holds out a hand to his son.

"Why are you not in bed, lad?" he asks gently, listening to the pitter-patter of Leyton's bare feet on the stained oak floorboards. He pushes back his chair just in time for Leyton to clamber up into his lap, a bundle of over-sized linen nightshirt and curly hair that refuses to be anything but fluffy no matter what his nurse does.

"I couldn't sleep, Papa," Leyton whispers, tucking himself carefully into Willas' lap, head under his father's chin, and then pulling Willas' arms up around him. "I was cold."

"Would you like another blanket?"

"Can't I stay with you tonight, Papa?  _Please?"_

Willas smiles, strokes Leyton's back and kisses his untidy hair. It's soft, silky-smooth and light, and reminds Willas of the short hair at Sansa's nape. The only time it doesn't ache to think of Sansa is when he and Leyton are sitting together like this at night, or when Leyton sneaks into Willas' bed after a bad dream and asks for stories of his mama to help him get back to sleep.

"Papa?"

"Yes, lad?"

"Do you hate me because Mother died when I was born?"

"What?! No, no - whatever put that sort of silliness in your head, Leyton? You know how much I love you!"

Willas is horrified that his son thinks him capable of hating him, is horrified at the notion of  _anyone_ hating Leyton - after that first week, once Mother all but dumped Leyton into Willas' arms and, in a moment of her usual uncanny insight, told him to focus on his son so his grief would be easier to bear, Willas had hardly been able to stand to be apart from his son. He'd carried Leyton in his arms all of the time after that, until the wetnurse came to feed him, and Leyton's crib in the nursery had hardly ever been used because Willas had slept almost every night with his son lying on his chest.

Even still, as soon as he's finished his lessons, Leyton spends the rest of the day either sitting on the high stool Willas had brought into his study and placed beside his chair or walking Highgarden holding Willas' hand. They don't like to be apart, either of them, and it is partially because of that that Willas is so hurt and confused at Leyton's apparent distrust.

"I heard Uncle Loras talking to Aunt Margaery and he said that you haven't been the same since Mother died, and Mother died when I was born."

Sometimes, because Leyton is so clever and so sharp and so mature, it is easy to forget that he is only just barely six years old, and Willas hates his brother for being so careless as to say something that, while true, is not at all appropriate for Leyton to hear somewhere that Leyton was in a position to hear it.

"I loved your mama very much," Willas says, standing up and bringing Leyton with him, smiling slightly when Leyton's arms wind around his neck. "More than I could say. We didn't have quite two years together, but I loved her with all my heart. She was my wife and my best friend, and there's only one thing I've ever loved more than her."

"Gardener? Grandmother?"

"You, you daft thing," Willas laughs, heart breaking and anger curdling into a resolve to hit Loras as hard as he can. "Never doubt that I love you, Leyton. I love you more than anything in the whole world."

"I love you too, Papa," Leyton sighs, tucking his head back under Willas' chin and snuggling closer, appeased now and apparently sleepy again. "Am I like Mama, Papa?"

"You have her hair," Willas says, finally finding the door handle and shutting the study behind them. "But everyone says you look like me, not your mama."

"But am I  _like_ Mama," Leyton persists, voice muffled against Willas' shirt. "Uncle Garlan says I am not very like you but Grandmother says I am. Am I like Mama too, Papa?"

He laughs like Sansa, laughs and giggles and shrieks when he's tickled. He likes lemon cakes and isn't above sneaking them out of the kitchen when Cook's back is turned. He likes everything to be precisely right, from the shine of his boots to the temperature of his bathwater. He prefers lavender to roses but likes the scent of the pine forest down the roseroad towards Oldtown most of all. He loves tales of knightly valour and wants to rescue maidens when he grows up.

"You are more like your mama than me, I think," Willas admits, wishing so much that Sansa could have seen Leyton. She would have worshipped him, Willas knows, adored him as much as Willas does himself and more. "She loved you so much, Leyton. So very, very much."

"And you loved her?"

"Gods, yes."

"Then I love her too," Leyton decides as Willas pushes his bedchamber door shut behind them. "Was she very beautiful, Papa?"

And Leyton never asks that meaning if something  _looked_ beautiful, because to him his papa not being able to see is as normal as Uncle Garlan not having two arms. It simply  _is._

Willas carries his son to the bed and sets him down, changes into his own nightshirt and slides in beside Leyton.

"The most beautiful woman I've ever known," he whispers as Leyton curls against his side. "The absolute most beautiful."


End file.
